Many detection systems exist for the detection of a variety of chemical, biological, explosive and nuclear agents. While these devices work very well at detecting their targeted agents, they have a number of drawbacks. Firstly, the devices generally only detect one or a few types of certain agents at the same time. A range of assays is used to optimize detection for the expected threats, but broad-spectrum simultaneous detection is generally not possible. Secondly, these devices must be brought into contact with the sample being analyzed—i.e. proximity to the threat is required. This means that soldiers or first responders are exposed to potential contaminants in order to acquire samples. Because of how they are typically used, these devices are designed as handheld or worn by soldiers. This makes interfacing with the devices via computer or other electronic means cumbersome.
Solutions that at least partially address these shortcomings have been developed. In particular, a CHARS [“Chemical weapons Hazardous Gas And Radiation System”] system is designed to mount on a small unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). The system includes three standard sensors: the MultiRAE™ hazmat environmental gas sensor, the Joint Chemical Agent Detect (JCAD) nerve, blister and blood agent sensor, and the Can berra AN/URD Radiac 13 gamma and neutron radiation detector. CHARS directly addresses all three of the issues mentioned above to a certain degree—by using multiple sensors packaged together, a broader spectrum of threat agents can be detected; the use of UGV significantly reduces the risks to the human through a special hardware configuration; and users upload data remotely from all sensors using a common communication protocol. While a significant advance, the CHARS package does also suffer from several drawbacks, of which the two most significant are: (i) no support for the detection of bio-warfare agents, and (ii) the need to package (and support) multiple individual sensors to get broad-spectrum threat coverage.
The present disclosure describes a reagent free mobile sensor to detect and identify a sample that may contain chemical, biological, explosive, or nuclear agent(s). The present disclosure describes an approach that maintains a substantially constant distance between the sensor and the surface undergoing analysis.